 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk number 69 yeah, baby 69 69 69 we were talking Beatles a little bit before the show. Yeah, sorry Yeah, yeah, watch the Beatles thing on the apple it fabulous if you're a Beatles fan, you know if you're a Stones fan You know, oh, yeah fine Anyway, it's time for tech talk And if you've got a question for George and I about your home voiceover studio or technology related to that throw it in the chat room whether you're in Facebook or YouTube And we will answer that question because George and I thrive on that kind of stuff So get those questions in now We've got lots of great stuff in your tech update with all sorts of cool stuff that you're gonna want for Christmas, right? Some of this is new tech. Yeah. All right Tech talk voiceover body shop coming up right now from the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Whitton the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional video studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world making the complex simple Debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio Answering your questions showing you the latest and greatest in VO tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voiceover body shop Tech talk Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voiceover essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites comm where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes comm become a hero to your clients with a word winning voice over training J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and Now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Well, hi there. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whitton and this is voice over body shop or VO Be as tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk time for some talking about tech But we need to as we do with every show we need to lead off letting people know what it is that you want Actually do why are we even qualified to talk about voice over studio because we've been doing it for a long time You know probably a combined 30 years Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah Plus yeah, and plus I mean I started doing this during our DAC backgrounds go away before voiceover I mean I started during the Nixon administration For the wire recorder, you know, it was that this wire was about 20 years before that. I know I know But we've been doing this a long time and the fact of the matter is as voiceover has accelerated as a potential profession over the last 20 years or so Nobody's really worked with people to Do their home studios you started working with the big boys like don LaFontaine and and and some of the other guys I kept the reason I thought this should be a full-time business serving these this this audience because he literally told me they Installed install all this stuff and then they disappeared. They don't tell me how to use it I don't do anything and I'm like jeez. This is a need so yeah, that's how we discovered that This industry needs help. Yeah. Yeah, and people are writing to me all the time. How do I do this? How do I do that because I would you know write something in Facebook or a blog somewhere? Yeah, and The wife's like you really should put out a shingle. You don't give away 30 years of knowledge That's simple. So I started doing it and then George and I met up and we realized that there's a collaboration here that will help you guys We work independently from each other for the most part except when my phone rings in the middle of the night and No, my paper is going off. We're an occasional webinar. We're exactly and We help you with your home studios We will teach you if you have no idea what you're doing We will teach you how to do it and we will do it quickly if you have you're just starting out completely from scratch Or maybe you've had well 20 years ago It was a full-time voice actor but now this stuff is all scared in the heck out of me What do you mean you have to record yourself right now? I was Talent yeah, whatever the case will we will help you out if you've got a technical issue We can help you out if you have questions Come watch our show like you're doing right now if you're watching live and ask your questions And we will clarify for it but if you would like to work with us each one of us professionally and Actually, have you either come into your studio or do a zoom session with you Make sure your settings are correct. Make sure your acoustics are right You can work with either one of us and if you want to work with George who has all sorts of great services Where would they go? They would go to? George the tech. Oh, that's right And if that confuses you George the tech comm also works You can check out my VO tech services menu on there. There's also a ton of free information including my reinvigorated blog where I'll be posting a lot of Answers to questions that I see come across on Facebook So that's all over at George the tech comm and Dan's home on the web where he helps out a ton of voice actors is home voiceover studio comm And we're in the process of rebuilding the website. So, you know, I'm trying to catch up to your website Well, my website needs to be built to or more both in that process It's a lot of work. It is a lot of something that works It's very hard to make something better right than what already works. So if it's not broken my fix I know it's it's still there. That's right And the same the same applies to your home studio. Are you getting work or people telling you your audio sucks? Then you may be want to work with us, but if it's if it sounds good It is good. You have the specimen collection cup. I do the sound check That's where you can go to start right out of the gate and make sure your audio is where it should be Right, you know friend for $25, you know, you go into the specimen collection club a good copy click on that Send me an mp3 with specific instructions and how I want it structured and I'll listen to it Usually within five to ten seconds. We know exactly what's going on here. Yeah, I mean, oh, it's okay There's some background noise, you know, there's hissing in there. Okay. They're not using their their interface properly Mike's facing the wrong direction. Yeah happens a lot Why is it sound muffled will help turn the mark around You know, it's stuff that what's amazing is that nobody Teaches this stuff. There are so many voice coaches out there people who teach voice acting and So many of them are utterly clueless as to this technology that you and I spend our time in days Helping people with that's right and we tend to mop up after them an awful lot So what's in your hidden to the yes tech update tech update lots of cool stuff and stuff that you're gonna want for your tree Let's see what we got here. Well, I am using and I do now have my new MacBook Air M1 I had and it's got a cute little cover on the back cute thank you Mine's coming this way this and you've got one coming. This is I so you guys have been following me I've had they I had the original MacBook Air M1 that I ordered at the second it came out a year ago And I decided to get another one. Why the only reason was as I wanted extra memory or RAM The my original one had eight gigabytes and it was fine most of the time But I was still getting the occasional air message saying you have used up all your memory And there was just some a little bit funky behavior now I don't I wouldn't have known to attribute it to memory unless I didn't also own a Mac mini M1 With 16 gigs of memory and that computer which I'm using all the time Has been flawless like it just everything just works without a thought. It's just instant and Reliable, so I thought maybe I should just get the MacBook Air M1 with 16 gigs now I could have bought the MacBook Pro and believe me. I was just as excited as everybody else watching the Apple release on it and it was just so much more money For features that I and pretty much all of you guys watching just simply don't need It's also heavier and thicker. It's a it's a significantly chunkier Computer so because it's housing hard heavier duty hardware a bigger battery etc. Etc So Anyway, I've been very happy with it now It does have Monterey, so if you've bought a MacBook Air since November, I guess when they release the new ones It's gonna have Monterey on it. Okay, so that's a little fair warning What you might be okay? Yeah, but what does that mean? What does that mean? That means that's the latest latest latest Mac OS. They do a new one every year usually around October The one we've been using for the last year is big sir 11.0 and now we're on Monterey 12.0 And it just means that because it's bleeding edge new you may have some surprises You may not have perfect compatibility with your audio hardware your software So if you go and plunge the money into one of these things you might take a little while to transition over to it Maybe copy your user account over and test it out on everything you need right before you sell the other one Don't trade the worst thing to do is to trade in your old computer Do not do that. First, you don't have a backup and second You get the worst possible amount of money for it if you trade it in keep the other one for a while and test it out It I haven't gone through a full-blown like try everything throw everything at it But the things that I normally would play around with like twisted wave W audition now source connect. Thankfully they have upgraded for Monterey. Those are Seeming to be running. Okay. I would not upgrade an older Mac Prior to silicon like an Intel Mac I wouldn't upgrade that to Monterey Because Monterey was written on and designed specifically on the new silicon machine. It doesn't mean it won't work. It just means that All of the benefits aren't going to be there and there's there have been and I have an article I found on osx daily.com saying that there actually were some people having their Macs be bricked When upgrading the Monterey in the early days Meaning like the computer does not boot up afterward. Oh, so and later. It's literally it's really a brick Okay, this is very much. This is an outlier, but they said in the article it happened enough to make to make mention of it It wasn't like a one random occurrence. So anyway Stick with Big Sur or older OS on an Intel machine if you're on The modern silicon and one type machines being on Big Sur or Monterey You're probably gonna be fine, but just tread lightly and back up before you upgrade anything Yeah, I'll give a full report when my M1 shows absolutely work We're dog-fooding it as we like to say by where do you come up with this stuff? I that's a software dog-fooding dog fooding is that the idea that if you're gonna make dog food Yeah, you have to eat it Because if you don't eat it, you don't know if it's any good. That's why they call it dog. Okay Makes perfect Again, I mentioned it quickly, but if you are on a brand new Mac Mac book that has Monterey You were kind of mmm a little in a bad place with source connect for a couple of weeks But yes, they scrambled and now you can load and run source connect on the Monterey Mac M1s. So you're good and I've tested it and it does work in terms of gear Um Earthworks is an interesting microphone company. They're not one that you've probably heard about talked about in context of voiceover at all right in Nether voice our friend, uh, Paul Strickward. He reviewed the the earthworks icon and he thought it was a great mic Now the earthworks ethos is their is their current release I just discovered it. It's a $7,000 broadcast style microphone broadcast style I know what that usually what that means is that you're talking to the end of it I actually have a picture of it here on one of my tabs on my browser here somewhere. Here we go. There it is Thank you, sue There's the ethos on the left. There's the icon pro on the right um It's kind of interesting because now they're selling two mics that really kind of overlap And it's it's I'm not really sure what the major benefits are of going up to this new $699 model But they all have the common The common design of using a very actually oddly I would almost say small diaphragm Inside, you know, the mics that we talk about the most by far tend to be large diaphragm condenser mics I'm scrolling down to see if I can find a Picture of the inside, but they don't they don't they don't show it here on their site But if you go on youtube type in a review of icon Or earthworks ethos and you'll find pictures of them taken apart The actual capsule inside is really tiny. Yeah, and that doesn't mean it's going to be inaccurate. Actually, they're extremely The downside of the little tiny capsules are they need they tend to be a little noisier and Before the show I was talking about this with dan. I was like dan. Do you know why Small capsule microphones are a little bit noisier than large diaphragm and from my basic knowledge of physics I I surmised an answer of well Small small diaphragm mics are designed primarily for music as is almost all the stuff we use But specifically small diaphragm mics are used for drum kits For they handle they handle much higher SPL sound pressure levels. Yeah, and therefore you don't have to apply as much gain to them So they don't think a whole lot about on the back end of where if a mic is noisy So if you don't only only have to turn the gain up so much, you're not going to hear Right, the sound you're mic'ing instruments horns drums things like that. You don't need a lot of gain It's if you're trying to record something very soft the 16 decibel self noise that they Say that this mic has could be a little bit high. Yep. Now. Where does that fall among other popular mics? That's actually right on par with a sennheiser 416. So it's not bad. I mean that mic is used constantly like that one Uh in pro pro pro context, but if you're kind of looking for the quietest microphones available It's not going to compete with really quiet mics because they tend to be large diaphragm I was reading a little bit about that's the differences between them and what makes one You know, why does one need more make some more self noise? And essentially the larger the diaphragm the more sensitive it is. So it just simply needs less amplification To give you the same kind of output whereas a really small capsule needs more amplification More application means more noise generally. So that's that's the reason for that. So anyway, um Will I get one in my hot little hands? Who knows? I don't know if there are forks I mean if it sounds more like if they're calling it a broadcast or well now a podcast mic, I guess It's I mean that obviously this is what they were thinking of it at four is broadcast. I think But it's capable of I would say is voice over pro Quality yeah, depending on what you're doing, right? Yeah, it's certainly capable, but it wasn't designed for voiceover specifically and that's because there's not Even today a very small understanding of what voice over actually voice actors actually want and need right That's our job. It's really like even some of the biggest companies out there are still selling a totally low sensitivity Sure microphone two voice actors A mic that's designed to be used very up close right taking very high levels shouting even It's it's it's just a wrong microphone for the job right we keep telling them this but they're like You know, it still ends up in the catalog every year. That's right. Um some interesting new products that also popped up And I'm I'm gonna say this is the most hilarious use of vu meters Uh throw me my vu meter there. It's right behind the the no no no right next to the the board there on the The right hand left hand side of the board. Yes. Yeah, throw me that Beautiful prop. Yes. Here is a view meter, right imagine these attached to your headphone ear cups Well, you don't have to imagine it because Here they are This is the this is the uh, the the brand is literally called meter's music Uh, notice the name music. Um, why their music? headphones Their bluetooth headphones Um, and they have view meters backlit view meters big beautiful Backlit actual not in not simulated not led little displays. Yeah, so but if you're wearing them and you're like, what what's my my What you're not gonna be able to turn far enough to see what's going on Early zero eyes can't go that far. I know All it is is just so that other people near you go. Ooh, look at the needles Or maybe so that your parents can go jimmy. I see the needle going into the red turn it down And then you're gonna tape over because you don't want your mom to yell you Anyway, it's it's got an app that lets you adjust the the response which is actually that's kind of cool It's got a tone control But you can control the color of the led lights on your headphones Anyway, this would be a nifty christmas gift kind of a fun thing for the friend in your family that would like this stuff If it wasn't so crazy You're well over three hundred dollars for crying out loud. Um, you know, and I think it's it's if it was like I think under hundred dollars. It would be a super cool nifty gift for One of us, uh, but I would never imagine And uh, I would never imagine anybody buying one of these for For anybody as a gift unless well, you just you know, you're in that kind of budget range gift giving But anyway, I thought those were really really interesting and funny almost Um, and a much more serious note. Um talking acoustics Uh, there's a company really brand new to me called pro so acoustic Um, and they're making an acoustical panel called the wave pro Acoustic panel with built-in diffuser and and it has also interchangeable fabric. Ooh So oh decor is important to you in your studio It's cool. So yeah, so there's to me this product has two innovations One is the superficial one, which is you can change the fabric right now that that that's impossible to do You can just pull the staples off and reupholster But the way it's designed is There's a groove and i'm hoping I can see enough detail. Here's a picture They they milled a groove into the back of the panel Groovy where your fabric tucks in and then it uses those screen door or What the screen strips? Oh, right right to hold the fabric and use a regular roller thing Yeah, use that little screen roller thing and you can just so you can easily peel off the fabric What if it gets stained or dirty you can take it off replace it clean it Is it a specific fabric that they would use on there or can you just go over to like joanne fabrics and find something You like better. Well, that's a really good question You know the key with acoustical fabric is it needs to be acoustically Transparent right sound should be able to pass right on through without being a change. So Yeah, you can use there's a lot of fabric that could be used There's no reason why you couldn't customize it and give it an interesting look Which is kind of cool and then the thing that makes it acoustically unique is The way they designed the the panel itself. Oh, it has two functions. It's an acoustic absorber So that's the the front layer behind the fabric. That's the typical mineral wool rockboard It's actually rockboard 40. I actually tell you what it is, which is cool And then behind it is this hard backing, but it's been It's been milled and machined using a wood CNC machine apparently Apparently we know somebody has one We might have to make one But uh, and so so the idea is that the sound not only gets has that Not only is it acting as an absorber It's also acting as a diffuser. I mean what sound that does make it through The rock wool Hits that surface and then is scattered right and this is a very specific pattern. Does that pattern remind you of anything? A sand painting primarily but it does a little bit, but does it remind you of like a certain certain kind of lens? Yes, like a Fresnel lens. Boom. Oh, so this is an acoustical This is an acoustical Fresnel lens Like this is using the science of Fresnel what Fresnel lens is I don't know that I know that some guy named Fresnel and it looks like Fresnel because there's an ass and it's silent But uh, it's it's an acoustical version of that and uh, it's very interesting science. Anyway There you go, and it's in a panel panel. It's it's a $200 panel. So It's a lot more expensive than A lot of the other panels of equivalent size Ats as a company comes to mind. They're like $60. These are about $200. So I it'd be interesting to experiment with it for $200. They better be damn good. They better be damn good They have nice mounting hardware to see that they um I could see investing in a few in a small space in a larger studio be very costly But it's interesting to try it out I I looked at the measurements the actual measurements and you you would still in a small booth like a 4 by 6 You would still need bass traps. It's not a substitute for that So i'm curious to see How it could make a sort of a stuffy Small very very dead sounding little vo booth sounds slightly more lively lively, but not like ringy and bad. So Andrea if you guys want to send me one, I'll try it out. Um, and last tech thing and this one's a nice one because it's free From I and then I didn't know anything about this company. There's so many companies that make plugins. Yeah, it's it's overwhelming um, but uh a friend from the pro audio suite Uh, one of our producers robbo said hey check out melda productions m e l d a And they have a bundle of plugins called the m free fx bundle I think it's like 37 plugins. Is this do you need 37 plugins? Heck no, but there's some good ones on there And I just wanted to try it out briefly and I tried their equalizer Because to me the the one plugin that a lot of people needs is a better Equalizer if you're using audacity especially Even the eq and and and twisted wave is is okay, but not the best It is a really really good replacement for the eq and audacity and it's really cool the way it's designed It's very interesting the way it works when you click on a band to adjust it It it filters out the rest of the audio so the when you click on it now You're only listening to that one band Yeah, and so it's very easy to kind of dial it in very quickly Is it adjustable with each band like a parametric or is it strictly it is a parametric Yeah, it has that kind of graphical interface. Do I have it on a tab in my browser and let me see I do but I don't have Let me jump back I installed it, but I don't have a screenshot So I'll have to we'll have to check it out later, but I played around with it It's free anybody can install and download and play with it There's a bunch of plugins and if you're not liking a plugin you've already got Give it a shot. It's it's it's what I call nag wear Meaning it's totally free But the saw the plugin reminds you at the bottom if you would just like to donate a little bit of money We can make this little bar go away at the bottom almost for the poor No, I like that business model. Of course they sell like a much more comprehensive Plug-in package if you want more stuff, but it's it's a nice. It's a nice tool to a supplement Anyway, last thing I just want to mention real quick is a note on troubleshooting I think we'll make this our discussion for tonight. So we make this our because this is something you and I do all the time awesome, I love it This came up recently and because a client of ours She's using reaper. I'm not gonna Say why she's using reaper just somebody at somewhere along the way said this is what I use So this is what you should use You should use reaper now reaper for me falls into a category of more of like pro tools, right, right woefully complex Much more feature set huge huge feature set that a voice actor could ever need extremely high level of customization Definitely the geeks in the world of audio love this because it's so customizable made for making music Yeah, they make for making music doing complex stuff Um, I had a client whose software all of a sudden just had weird behavior She'd hit play Watch the little play cursor go across and then two seconds later She would hear what she sees on screen Everything's out of the delay. Yeah, right And you know, I I had a limited amount of time to troubleshoot it and I remembered some time ago Some smart person at the genius bar said let's just install Let's just set up a new user account And just try running the same program And the problem went away when in-doot Reboot. Yeah, this is like the next level of reboot, right? We tried the reboot that didn't work and and I remembered this this tip and the reason why that tip worked And while this is the moral of the story, okay, sometimes it's giving a fresh start to the software We'll clear out the problem. And yes, you will have to restore Maybe manually your preferences, but something got corrupted inside of the original program the VU meter on the right But it's now it's on the okay. You're gonna you might take 15 minutes rebuilding it But that troubleshooting process to find out why it was doing Would turn into potentially hours So that's that's a really critical thing with troubleshooting. I mean Sometimes it's not about figuring out why it happened. It's just figuring out How do you get back to work quickly? How have you dealt with problems like that in your own in your own studio? Do you do you like to get into the why is this happening or do you just want to It doesn't happen to me often. That's good. That's the thing I mean, it's pretty rare that I've seen a problem like that I mean, I've used the same software for probably 10 years. You know, I use adobe audition. I'll use twisted wave You know, I'll I have the other ones I have audacity and some of the others So I can demonstrate stuff to people and I still use twisted wave for a really long format stuff because it's really easy to To divvy up files with it. Yeah, but I've very rarely had a problem Because one I maintain my computer I make sure that you know, there's always enough Drive space and things along those lines. But when I encounter problems with people who are, you know, having software issues You know, you and I will do this we'll go into their computer and say, okay, what what are the settings? What's going on here? You know, why can't they do this and it's usually a mouse click Something some menu somewhere is not click. I had a client last week where it's like I can't move this thing in pro tools And I I'm not a big pro tools person. I don't use it, you know, but I know how to read a menu You know, was it a Vietnamese restaurant last night? I was like, I was able to read that But I can read a menu in software Whole in a wall place, but the food was fabulous um If you understand how to run through menus That's really a good another good spot to to jump in when you're troubleshooting Because that's usually where the problem is Unless something is doing like what you were saying, it's it's doing something that is erratic That generally indicates that there's a something's corrupted in the file somewhere preference file or preference database Exactly, or there's a driver issue, especially if you're on a pc Yeah, a lot more driver issues on windows. Yeah. Yeah, that's always the first question mac or pc And if they say pc, I'm like, let's check your drivers. Let's see what the drivers are you doing right now, right? Yeah, exactly. All right. It's it's troubleshooting is it isn't is it it's an art as much as it is a science and That's just something that I know we really pride ourselves on is getting to the root of the problem Rapidly and not spinning it out into a long Exactly process. So all right. We've got questions Write them in the chat room in facebook or on youtube wherever it is You happen to be watching and we would love to answer your questions As specific or as not as specific as possible We'll be right back with voiceover body shop tech talk right after this This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony menta's and you're enjoying dan and george on the voiceover body shop Let's face it If you're a voice talent not everyone in your family or close friends really understands what you need for your home voiceover studio You want a what? Well voiceover essentials.com has the perfect answer when it comes to birthdays and other gift giving for us voiceover folk New for the first time ever after countless requests Voiceover essentials.com is thrilled to offer the voiceover essentials gift card You pick the amount you want to give and they take care of the rest The recipient will receive an email with their digital gift card and gift code to use on anything they offer on voiceover essentials.com Give them or give yourself the gift of getting exactly what you want Like the harlin hogan vo1a microphone the portabooth prower plus harlin hogan's signature series voiceover optimized headphones the bottom What go to voiceover essentials.com and click on shop and gift cards and choose the amount gift cards now at voiceover essentials.com Thanks, harlin Well, hello there. I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat This is virgin radio. Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values A leader for california and a voice for america. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smart phone But it's so much more. It's the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice? Check out this song. It's the end of the road It's your mirror when hope is lost the i8 from bmw Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's j michael collins. I bet you think i'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email It's j michael at jmc voiceover.com now if they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute We'll get back to the show Source elements source elements source elements so you guys familiar with source elements You're not watching the show if you're not because we talk about it all the time But it's they're one of our lovely sponsors. They've been supporting us for a long time And they've created this thing called source connect They also have a pretty wide range of tools You definitely want to go to their site and see what they what services they have because They have all kinds of ways to collaborate So I know a lot of your voice actors you just want to be able to connect to a studio But you'd be surprised what some of the tools are in there And you might find ways that you can better serve your your actual clients by making better use Of their tools and some of them are just ways to better collaborate, you know, that's what you're going to find over at source dash elements But most of you source connect is is the thing you're probably the most gonna most going to be requested to use And you can get started with that by just getting a free trial. You can get a demo Head over there and go to source dash elements.com And sign up there and avail yourself of the education they have there They have a lot of information About the way the software works. They have very well designed Site that helps you through the process of getting it set up And you can get yourself a demo running so that when someone says hey, are you a source connect equipped voice actor? You can say yes. Yes, I am Um, and that's gonna get you the better paying gigs for sure Anyway, we appreciate source elements for your support. Let's get to those questions. Come on. Let's get to it Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop And we're back. We are back Hey, we got a few questions to deal with here Ah, let's see start reading them and I'll keep an eye on the chat. Okay. Let's see here questions questions By the way, you and I are doing a webinar. Oh, yeah next week. That's right uh, we're doing one with voiceover extra on Wednesday the 14th At five o'clock pacific time Uh, you can register over at voiceover extra one of our fine sponsors here We're gonna do a lot of you know question and answers, but it's gonna be very personable We're going to be talking specifically about things that people need to do to get their voiceover audio Up to stuff quickly and then we will answer questions and we'll have time to go into a little more detail and You know, sometimes people are a little bit bashful to ask Ask their questions in a public forum like this live stream So this is a great kind of a safe place to come and talk about your your home studio. Exactly Yeah, so go on over to voiceover extra and look for our our webinar Because I know john will have this big poster of us there Uh, and we're looking forward to doing that. So yeah, me too. Alrighty first question for tonight From dan alpern Any updates on the mineral wool versus fiber for a home studio? Converting part of a home office space to booth soon. Thanks for all the great work team All right, thank you Mineral wool wool versus fiber Well, like fiberglass, I think maybe if you're talking about fiberglass. Yeah You know, there's there's there are some changes in the way fiberglass is made now Depending on who you talk to some would say fiberglass is really just as safe Just has just as low and low toxicity now as other products Um, and there are some that still believe the best acoustical panels are made with Soft loose fiberglass like pink insulation. Right But in the in the real world of a voiceover studio where it's a really cramped space You don't have the luxury of using big thick Soft battens of of acoustical are fiberglass. Right now. There are there are compressed fiberglass materials as well But for every reason they always seem a lot more expensive when you're comparing products because you've got to compress the fiberglass So I guess the process to make it the bonding the glue. Yeah, I guess it's kind of expensive the um oc Owens corning oc 703 Um tends to be pretty pricey So I I still tend to to to almost always universally recommend products made with the Rock wool like rock salt and stuff like that. Yeah rockboard. Uh, there's a couple brands Safe and sound is what you might find it like a your big box big box hardware store And um, it is becoming more like commonly available. You can actually just order it from Home Depot or Lowe's and I get the stuff cut in two by four sheets ready to make panels So I got a bunch of it sitting in the side of the garage here. Oh, it's a no I want to make a panel coming up here. Um, yeah, so I'm I'm still leaning towards the The mineral wool style of product if you're comparing the two All right next question from Ron M Interested in george's long-term thoughts on the prisonis revelator i o 2 4 have seen some Complaints about noise. Have you seen this would you recommend the i o 24 for a voiceover talent? That's an excellent question because I think the way you and I would use something like that might be very different from say what a voice actor is You know the more complexity you have in something If you don't understand what that complexity is for It's a lot of money for stuff that you're never going to use right right. It I kind of look at it is as a You know focus right scarlet 2i 2 with a very complicated Software mixer built in Um, so is what that one is So if you don't have the need for things called mix minuses or loop backs and if when I say those terms You've never heard to me for you don't need them. You don't If you don't know what a channel strip is you don't need it Um, it basically takes something is that on the surface looks as simple as a scarlet 2i 2 um and adds a tremendous amount of features internally and uh What's that coming from outside? Is it really? Yeah No, it's the security camera. Never. This is security camera. Don't look Um No, it's it's a very very interesting that you're really just getting a ton more Software features that are kind of built into the box Now I've been using one personally now in my home studio for about two months And then I've not had any problems. Good. I have read the comments or the reviews that you have I have seen a few people say they're hearing noise Probably from their headphones or maybe their speakers Has them in my experience yet I will say that personas definitely has to prove themselves with their with their audio hardware There's such especially their usb based stuff because I've seen a lot of it not perform that well, uh either it's noisy Or it doesn't last for the long haul so, you know Knock the wood as my girlfriend would say I would say I hope it I hope it proves to be a reliable long Long-standing good quality piece of gear as it's proven to be for me. Right so far, right? I do like that. I can set a high pass filter So I use the channel strip to make sure there's no rumble getting into my mic I do use it for live streaming as we do as we're doing tonight So I do take advantage of the additional features I do teach webinars. I do Additional things that voice actors don't typically do and so I really do take advantage of the extra service features that are built into it So not everybody needs those things. Yeah, the the thing is is most of those things Are really for producing more complex material mixing music over, you know underneath the voice over Um, which is where the whole phrase comes from Uh, and generally unless you are a commercial producer You're a creative person that's doing this stuff for other people. You really don't need all that complexity You know, you and I use it because you know, we do webinars and we do Uh, you know teaching online Absolutely live webcast podcast That's what mixers are for for live mixing of you know of of content that you want to get across So if you have A microphone and an interface that's generally all you need Uh, unless someone says can you mix music with this and all that? Then you've got to learn multi-tracking Which is a whole another skill Uh, you know, I remember, you know, they rolled in this four track Atari real-to-real machine in my radio My production studio one day and I'm like, oh my god. Yeah, you know, but You I still had to learn how it worked And then creatively learn how to use it You know, there were certain things I'm I'm sure I would did things with that that the designers never had in mind You know, I've always been able to take technology and take it to the next step Um, you know and then not tell anybody about But yeah, I you don't need anything that sophisticated, especially if you're starting out It's not the equipment that gets you work It's how you use it and your knowledge of how to use it So don't go out buying this stuff because you think it's going to make you a better voice actor None of it's going to change the way you read copy and more more more often than not Unless you have a proclivity to want to learn new tech and you really enjoy that process The additional features that you're getting with these more Sophisticated interfaces become a distraction. Yep, or even confusion And if you're doing a lot of live directed stuff where you're being You know, we're being recorded live over sorts kind of something that can end up being embarrassing If you don't know how to fix something on the fly, right? So, you know, be careful when you're Going into these newer techs their technologies. Yeah, um, patricia. Andrea has an interesting one She's okay. I have a question. All right. I'm raising hand Now I have not yet truly heard my own voice Interesting. Okay. Um, I guess meaning recorded Okay, her own recorded voice. So any tips on how to approach this? I just got the computer I have the interface and I have speakers and the whole thing So now I'm just ready to plug in tests. So what do you recommend to use? As a guide if any or just scheduled before plugging anything in and blowing out a fuse So she's she's wondering like is you have a place to what what should I do next? I guess is what she's saying. I have all this stuff call us It's pretty simple talk to someone who knows exactly what they're doing We're the guys to talk to I mean because we deal with someone, you know, it in your experience level Every day, right? Uh, we don't we don't work one-on-one mainly with engineers We work mainly with actors and users that are not tech geeks You know, we we really try to make sure we're not intimidating you with jargon And we are really careful to teach what you actually need to know right now Exactly not something that would be really helpful for you 10 helpful for you 10 years down the road No, it's what you need to know right now to get professional quality. Yeah, that's what you're going to learn Yeah, so, you know, we we have the addresses. You know where to find us Yeah, I mean it's in terms of a generic user guide. It's it depends on what gear you have You know, it depends on the size of your studio, right depends on the kind of mic you have It does there's a lot of peculiarities about the equipment you're using that In a 30 minute session with Dan and I we would get through we would cut through all that very rapidly You know, so I would say that's your best I find that people tend to Buy the equipment before they know what it's for someone will recommend something to them And you know like an sm said and be or uh, you know already 20 or something along those lines You know dynamic microphones and things like that that are clearly wrong for voiceover. There's some very specific things You don't want to spend you start out spending a lot of money because the money's not going to get you work It's you know, you can start off with a a good usb mic and learn how to set levels properly And make sure your acoustics are right Uh, because the acoustics of the room are really the most prime thing very very critical and a a so-so Studio condenser mic in the right environment will sound just as good as anything else And there's no engineer out there that can tell the difference unless you have a really crappy mic Yeah, and making a buzz or right or hissy hissy sound or the frequency response is really limited Yeah, I mean yeah if you buy a $40 usb mic, you will not get very good sound probably not Probably even if you were lucky enough, it would not last long. Yeah Um, jim mc nicolas asked a question about some very high tech gear. Okay. Uh, he's like georgia There any updates on the Apollo issues? So I would love to know what the Apollo issues are you're referring to Well, there were a pile of them before you were there were issues like three or four years ago Or even maybe a year and a half ago that I was hearing about of I think he's talking about the whooshing waterfall sound issue You know jim it's interesting if that's what you're referring to I haven't heard a peep about it and I don't know a year It's been a long time. So whatever like bad batch of You know components that they had in their factory when they built those Seems to have it seems to have run their course It seems like they've corrected it because I I have not heard a single complaint about an Apollo flaking out making noise or anything and You have a face you have a facebook group about Apollo issues. Don't you I do I do in fact I posted recently on there. It's called Universal audio Apollo for voiceover. Yeah, and I posted a survey on there saying Is it time I just take this form down because there's there's one on You know specifically for universal audio, right a lot of people are like no no no we still come here for help You know, but I do have a group on it. It's a good place to share information about the Apollo for voiceover and we did have a very long discussion thread that was spearheaded by um Tim tippets and and myself tim Friedlander was in there too But yeah long story short. I think those issues are passed. I think they've resolved them I haven't heard anything about the whooshing problem. It feels like for a year. Oh, okay You know, so thankfully it seems to be uh, it seems to be pretty solid And the thing and the thing is the Apollo twin It's a fabulous unit. I mean it you know, it sounds great and all those things But people tend to buy it for the wrong reasons You know, it's like they buy it because you can have like plug-ins because it's really no different from any other interface It's just a little more system. Just it's very related. It's actually kind of related to that the personas revelator The revelator is kind of like the Apollo and the scar. It's kind of the the the goldilocks between the two It's it's nowhere near as incredibly. It's nowhere near as expensive Um as the Apollo it's not as simplistic as the scarlet. It's kind of like right in between It does a lot. It does some things better than the Apollo the revelator has much better sound drivers It's much easier to Understand how you can send audio to something and bring the audio back and where it's going to go Much easier to understand on the revelator But the Apollo has the the the additional functionality of all of its Plug-ins and that to me can be a pro or a huge con because it's a massive distraction People get really caught up in well, don't I need the manly voxbox plugin when i'm doing promo and trailer They get they get obsessed with it So if you're trying to replace some old rack gear that you've always used say like an avalon 737 or a neve Something something and you want it to be all in one box The Apollo is awesome for that If you're just looking for the next thing from your scarlet Ah I'm still not going to be excited about recommending it. It's just it can be Distractingly complicated to use at times, especially monitoring Monitoring can be really confusing. So just be careful, right Jeff Roland asks more questions. Yes. I was going to use reaper, but after hearing george's comment I'd like to hear your da suggestions Dan you said your favorites already. Well, I yeah adobe audition Again adobe audition is a little more complex if you've never done any recording before Uh, you know, I like I said I've been doing this a long time I understand How it works what it's supposed to be doing, you know the multitracking and and the effects you can throw because I of course I believe all effects should be done in post nothing should be done up front um But you know adobe edition is great. Yeah, it's 20 bucks a month But I find it, you know more than worth it. Uh, have you upgraded by the way? Oh, are you using the 2022? Oh, absolutely. And how's that going? I Seamless do you think it was I think there was something funky with 2021. Did you have Early on there was an issue and they they patched it and and and it started working Yeah, I sometimes the the spectrograph would disappear and all you would have is the the waveform Okay, and we they they fixed that problem before they released the 2022. No, it's been it's been rock solid You know, especially on the m1 Twisted wave if you're on a mac it just makes it see there there are people who like well, I learned on pro tools Yeah I get that if you learned 15 plus years ago, right? You either probably learned on cool edit right or pro tools right one of those two But the thing is is it may be more sophisticated than what you need And as we like to say pro tools and and logic and some of these big Multitrack programs is getting a control room for a nuclear reactor to control a hamster running in a wheel There's not a whole lot going on there And there's things that you don't need to do if you get your sound right up front That solves a lot of problems people is highly customizable. Yeah much for people that like Like controlling their tech and getting really into the customization. It's great for people that just want to be productive Twisted wave is really awesome. I didn't catch if you're on macro windows, but if you're on on Yeah, I didn't catch that whether you're on macro windows, but If you're on windows and you want something that doesn't cost you monthly I still wouldn't go Reaper. I start with audacity or wave pad Wait, I was gonna say wave pad is a popular one. So I wanted those. Yeah, or or this there's uh, Oson audio which is an oce n which is very very simple, but it's got a spectrograph, which I really like I haven't even tried that yet. Yeah. No, it and it works pretty good. It's a lot like wave pad only it's free Uh, you know and then of course audacity which is also free and as he gets better and better Yeah, and there's a lot of professionals using audacity because Ones and zeros or ones and zeros the the software itself does not sound any different from any other software It's what you can do to manipulate the audio, which I keep telling people don't do if you don't know how to do it That really makes the difference. So you have last one and this is a really quickie because we already answered it Vo asks any info on source connect standard 3.9 9 compatibility With mac os m1 silicon. It has been supported since pretty much the very beginning On big sir and they just released their update for Monterey. So if you're on a new Brand new m1 that's stuck on Monterey. You are okay with source connect 3.9 because they have an update so You're good to go. Excellent Alrighty well for the questions that is all and uh, we thank you for your questions We thank you for joining us, but we still got a little bit more to talk about We're gonna take a break and we'll be right back to tell you all about that Right after this Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great When I speak with actors about adding audiobooks To their voiceover quiver And doing so through my class the one I teach with dan oday called the acx master class They say look, we know it's a valuable class. It's it's got all the things we need. It's really expensive Do you have a payment plan? I usually have to say no, we don't But now I can say yes, we do because we're going to do a special Four-month payment plan that reduces your four monthly payments Down to an amount that would fit in anybody's budget and then on your fourth payment We start the class right the beginning of 2022 So you don't even have to remember that we're opening the doors on this on december 20th All you have to do is go now to acx masterclass.com. Take a moment. Do it now Join our alert list and we'll let you know when the doors open on this special four-month payment plan For the acx masterclass that's acx masterclass.com In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept To live online in a much shorter time When you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com Where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? Before time began there was vobs dot tv watch or else We're gonna wrap it up. We're back. We're back. We're back. We're back All righty. Well Next week on this show. Well, we we have to remind people we we have a webinar coming up And if they're watching this it is coming up this wednesday night Okay, it's wednesday. So if you're watching this on thursday the 15th, you missed it So but you can get a recording of it. You can still get a recording go over to voiceover extra dot com. That's v o i c e x t r a dot com And look for our webinar and we'll be george and i will be there Do what we do here, but a little bit more in depth. So it's it's worth it for you to drop by for that Uh, who are our donors this week? Oh, let's take a look here I have in my calendar that the webinar is on the 14th tuesday Is it is tuesday the 14th? Okay, it's tuesday Cut edit it's tuesday tuesday the 14th I just wanted to be sure but i wanted i don't i want to make sure i've been doing that You know, i just went on medicare. Oh you did so the brain is not i i mix updates and things like that now So i wanted to double check. Okay. I'm glad you did um tuesday the 14th tuesday the 14th Go over to voiceover extra in which case if you're watching this on wednesday the 15th You missed it get the recording All right, so who are we gonna do think thank some donors. Thank the donors. I get to do it again We can alternate. Oh, let's do alternate. Okay. It's more fun. Oh, we got rob rider patty gibbons Greg thomas shana pentington baird. Uh, yes icon productions don griffith steven schandler sandra man willer robert leadham and antlamp productions. Hey uncle roy. How you doing? The greatest pez collection out there Maybe well, we have a rival. Oh, I and I know somebody else with a humongous pet selection. There's apparently It's quite the thing When I see pez, I just eat it and it'll take up too much space. That's well, but yeah, it's better than a refrigerator collection. That's right Alrighty, uh, if you want to work with george, where do you go? Head over to georgev dot tech and if you want to work with dan Go over to home voiceover studio dot com Um, although people write to me and call me george and I'm sure people write to you and say Call you That's why I shaved it all off tonight. I didn't want to be confused. Alrighty Uh, we need to thank our sponsors, of course, uh, harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements the makers of source connect Vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and jmc demos Alrighty our thanks to sumer lino for Coming in tonight and joining us here actually in the studio. We've been doing this remotely for so long I know it's much more fun with everybody's together Uh, uh, so we thank her for doing a great job tonight and of course lee penny Because he's lee penny What else what else can we say in arizona? That's right. Well, you know kids As we say every week this is not an easy business There's a lot to learn but when it comes to your audio if you get it, right? If you get your acoustics, right? If you get your mic, right? You get your level set, right? And your technique If it sounds good, it is good I'm dan letterd and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vio Be As have a great week everybody tech talk tech talk tech talk